How to create a new Firefox profile

For a handful of users, 1Password’s toolbar button may fail to appear in Firefox. These browsers use a “profile” system that allows advanced users to create multiple profiles containing different bookmarks and extensions. When 1Password’s button does not appear in these browsers, it can be caused by the default profile becoming corrupted, or it is old and contains a bug that prevents the button from installing.

This document describes how to create a new profile to fix this problem, based on Firefox’s official support document about managing profiles.

Crucial Things To Know Before Getting Started

The profile system used in Firefox is designed specifically so that users can keep separate sets of bookmarks, extensions and themes. Because of this, a new profile is like starting with a blank slate, so you will need to re-install extensions and port your bookmarks over. It may be possible to copy all of this information from one profile to another, but that is outside the scope of this document.

Step 1: Launch The Profile Manager

Quit Firefox if it is running, and open the Terminal application (found in Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities). To open Firefox’s Profile Manager, copy and paste the two following snippets of code into the Terminal app, which is found in Applications/Utilities:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -ProfileManager

After pasting the code, press Enter and your browser should launch, but instead of seeing a browser window, you should see the Profile Manager window, as shown here:

FirefoxProfileManager

Step 2: Create Your New Profile

Click the “Create New Profile…” button in the Profile Manager to begin the process. An introductory page that explains what profiles are will appear, so click the Continue button in the lower right.

FirefoxProfileManagerNew

This next screen will allow you to name your new profile and choose a location for it. Pick whatever name you want, but we recommend leaving the default location for this profile alone unless you are an advanced user and you have a reason for moving a Firefox profile to a custom location.

Click the “Done” button to finish creating your new profile and return to the Profile Manager.

Step 3: Install 1Password Extension in New Profile

Go to the 1Password > Preferences > Browsers, find your new Firefox profile, and enable the checkbox beside it to install the 1Password extension.

Step 4: Use Your New Profile

FirefoxProfileManager2Profiles

Make sure the new profile you just created is selected, and do not change any other settings in the Profile Manager. Click “Start Firefox” to begin using your new profile.